Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade II listed building. Main construction periods 1858 to 1998

Summary from record TR 04 SW 65 :

Built between 1858 & 1871, the former carriage shop is a brick building of 21 bays. In 1898, now a sawmill, it was extended & an Italianate water tower added. It contained a complete automatic fire extinguishing apparatus.

Monument Types

• SITE (Unknown date)
• CARRIAGE WORKS (CARRIAGE WORKS, Post Medieval - 1858 AD to 1871 AD)
• SITE (Post Medieval to Modern - 1858 AD to 1998 AD)
• SAW MILL (SAWMILL, Post Medieval - 1898 AD to 1898 AD)
• WATER TOWER (WATER TOWER, Post Medieval - 1898 AD to 1898 AD)

Full description

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The following text is from the original listed building designation:

750/0/10039 Carriage Shop, Newtown Railway Works
18-SEP-01
GV II
Railway carriage works, later sawmill. Built between 1858-1871, and extended, with the water tower added, in c1898, all for the South Eastern Railway. Two parallel gabled red brick ranges with stone quoin pilasters and modern steel sheet roofs, the water tower roof is probably leaded.
The original block was a brick building of 21 bays with tall rubbed brick round headed arches separated by pilasters. On the north elevation the sixteenth bay from the west has a wide opening. The building has a double pitch roof. In c1898 the Carriage Shop, by now a sawmill, was extended to the south-east by a narrower five bay range half the width of the original. The extension continues the exterior arched arrangement of the former block. At the same time a tall four-storey water tower was added in an Italianate style. This square tower has a door in the north-east re-entrant angle and has square headed windows on its ground, first and second levels. The third storey has round headed windows with a central keystone, rendered quoins in imitation of masonry, and moulded corbelling below the eaves, low pitch pyramid roof. The south-east gables have been closed in brick in the 1990s; each has two arched windows. The north-west gables still have the openings to access the internal roads.
Interior: This was only partly seen (July 1998). The original building is framed internally by pairs of timber trusses supported in the centre by fairly thick and squat cast iron columns. The trusses have queen posts with princess rods and metal straps. The extension block has almost matching trusses. The open spaces between the central cast iron columns have been infilled with breeze blocks.
History: The original building appears first on the OS map of 1871 and was built as a carriage shop by the South Eastern Railway. By the time it was extended in c1898 it had become a sawmill and a water tower was added. The Railway Magazine of 1898 says that this was the only railway workshop of this kind in England to be fitted with completely automatic fire extinguishing apparatus. By the 1980s it was used as a wheel shop by B.R.E.L. and in 1998 it was being used by Balfour Beatty, once again as a carriage repair shop.
Reason for listing: Apart from the replacement of the roof covering it is one of the least altered of all the early buildings at Ashford Works and the only one in a near original use.
Reference: RCHME, The Railway Works, Ashford, Kent, 1990.
Listing NGR: TR0181941635

Description from record TR 04 SW 65 :
Built between 1858 & 1871, the former carriage shop is a brick building of 21 bays. In 1898, now a sawmill, it was extended & a tall four-storied Italianate water tower added. It contained water tanks 55ft above the floor level of the shop which powered a complete automatic fire extinguishing apparatus for the building. The Railway Magazine of July-December 1898 stated was the only railway workshop of its kind in England to have this system.(2)

The original block was a brick building of 21 bays with tall rubbed round-headed arches, seperated by pilasters. The building has a double pitched roof, framed internally by pairs of timber trusses supported in the center by cast iron columns.
The trusses have queen posts with princess rods and metal straps

The building in 1991 was used for wheel making and was one of the least altered of all the buildings in the railway works. (1)

Additional bibliography. (3-4)

<1> RCHME, 1991, The Railway Works Ashford, RCHME Historic Building Report (Unpublished document). SKE6767.

<2> D.T. Timins, 1898, The Railway Magazine (Serial). SKE6768.

<3> Alan Baxter & Associates, 2004, Ashford Railway Works - Historic Buildings Assessment (Unpublished document). SKE16615.

<4> Museum of London Archaeology, 2008, Newtown Railway Works, New Town Road, Ashford: A Standing Building Survey Report (Unpublished document). SKE16614.

Sources and further reading

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